A vegetarian recipe by Jill Nussinow, MS, RD, The Veggie Queen. Jill is a vegetarian, vegan and pressure cooking expert. This recipe is a simple and easy one-pot vegan meal. You can find more recipes on Jill’s website: http://theveggiequeen.com

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 cup white beans, soaked overnight or quick soak

1 medium onion, chopped

2 bay leaves

½ to ¾ cup homemade vegetable stock or water

3 cloves minced garlic

1 large bunch greens such as kale, chard or spinach, chopped to equal 3~4 cups

Comments

13 Responses to “White Beans with Greens and Lemon”

Hi Jill, with the white bean recipe can I add any other vegetable to the recipe/ my wife suggested pumpkin but I do not want to mess around with the meal just in case something goes wrong. I have done this meal before and found it great.

Once you make the recipe, you can add anything you like. If you are going to add pumpkin or other winter squash, add it at the 2nd stage when you add the greens. Should turn out just fine.
Happy to hear that you like the recipe.

It sounds like there are 2 issues, the first of which is the beans. I give the time of 7 minutes but not all white beans will actually cook in that time. I have had some that were falling apart at 7 minutes and others that needed 9 minutes. Older beans need more time. Always check to see if the beans are cooked before serving.
Regarding the greens, it is very unusual for the pot to come to pressure a 2nd time and have no steam come out when you do the quick release.
I am not sure what to tell you. My best suggestion is for you to cook the white beans separately and see how long they take you: age of beans and hard water both cause you to cook beans longer. You might also want to cook greens for 2 minutes and see how they turn out.
I am sure that with more cooking, you will fall in love with the Instant Pot. Try my recipes for Steel Cut Oats or Black Beans in the booklet.

What did I do wrong? This was my first time using the Instant Pot (other than the test run with water, which they suggest in the instruction book, and which I did). I followed your recipe, exactly, and the beans were undercooked and the greens (chard) were barely cooked. I used ½ cup broth for the beans and there was a bit of liquid (not much) left at the bottom of the pot, so I assume it was not that I used too little liquid. Did I need to increase the time from the 7 minutes in your recipe? Could it be that salt in the broth inhibited the cooking? I used Pacific brand organic broth. I had soaked my beans (organic great northern beans) overnight. When I did the quick release at the end, no steam came out.

Hi Susan
I have needed longer cooking periods also for artichokes, beets, etc as I have been exploring my new pressure cooker as a vegetarian. There is a handy list in the “Electric Pressure Cooker Recipes” booklet that came with my machine that lists how long to cook all kinds of things. They list 20 types of beans/legumes with cooking times for both soaked and dry for each type. Lima beans say dry 20-25 min, soaked 10-15 min. It is suggested in the booklet to let the cooker cool off and naturally decompress to give the beans even more time to cook over and above the suggested cooking times. I followed the suggested 25 min for soaked chickpeas earlier today letting it decompress naturally and they were just barely done. I let them sit in “warming mode” that the machine goes into, I guess until its unplugged, for an hour after that “by accident” and they became melt in your mouth fabulous. I am trying this recipe now and am grateful for your comments and questions. I am going to cook my soaked beans for 20 min!

Whenever you cook dried beans don’t salt until the beans are done. I’m not certain whether using broth with salt would have the same results, but salt added to water of even beans soaked overnight will cause the beans to remain hard and can take as long as an hour and a half to cook, and still be hard. The key is no salt. My Instant Pot cooks beans in 30 minutes. I would suggest using water and if you want the broth, add it after the beans are done.